Marvel

Amusement Park Podcast 024: The Batman, Reign of the Supermen, The Punisher – and bonus thoughts

/ Ian Casselberry / Leave a comment

reign_supermen

On the latest Amusement Park Podcast, we react to news of the next Batman movie being set for a Summer 2021 release and a younger Bruce Wayne meaning Ben Affleck will no longer play the role. We also review the entire Season 2 of The Punisher after delving into the first six episodes last week. And we review the latest DC animated movie, Reign of the Supermen.

https://soundcloud.com/casselberry/the-batman-reign-of-the-supermen-plus-a-punisher-recap

Previously, I’ve just posted the same blurb and link to the podcast that you can find at the Amusement Park Podcast website. But I’d like to try and offer a bit more here at The Casselbloggy, especially for those who take the time to click over and read. I think it could be a good opportunity to discuss topics that didn’t make the cut or stuff that I intended to include but forgot to mention while we were recording.

That’s where I’d like to go this week because it’s bugging me that I forgot to talk about Punisher star Jon Bernthal and his voice for Frank Castle. I’ve seen Bernthal in several other movies and TV shows like The Walking Dead, Sicario, Show Me a Hero and The Ghost Writer, but had forgotten what his actual speaking voice sounds like. So when I watched some talk show clips of him, it was jolting to me how different he sounded from Frank Castle.

I know; it’s called acting! But it’s still impressive to me (and far more effective than, say, Christian Bale’s Batman voice) and a reminder of how deeply Bernthal lost himself in that role. It’s a damn shame that he probably won’t play The Punisher anymore.

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Amusement Park Podcast 014: We Will Miss You, Stan Lee

/ Ian Casselberry / 1 Comment

stan_wave

On the latest Amusement Park Podcast, we pay tribute to Stan Lee and the Marvel icon’s role in pop culture. Also, George R.R. Martin’s struggles with The Winds of Winter, Hallmark Christmas movies update, and what we’re enjoying this week.

https://soundcloud.com/casselberry/we-will-miss-you-stan-lee

If you’re enjoying our podcast, please leave a review on iTunes and help boost our signal. You can also tell us what you think at amusementparkpod@gmail.com and on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @amuseparkpod. We’d love to hear from you. Thank you for listening!

You can subscribe to the Amusement Park Podcast everywhere you find podcasts:

Stan Lee left behind a legacy like no other

/ Ian Casselberry / 3 Comments

StanLee_thwip

Writing a tribute to Stan Lee was something I’d been thinking I should do for quite some time. After all, (Stan) the man was 95 years old and there were various reports about his deteriorating health. Just as a newspaper would get an obituary ready, I thought I should get something ready — whether the piece was written for another site or my own.

Sure, laziness and procrastination were probably the primary reasons for not getting that done. But the idea of writing something in anticipation of Stan Lee’s death was also very upsetting. He still appeared to be lively and vibrant in his many Marvel movie and TV cameos. It seemed as if Smilin’ Stan might just live forever.

Thanks to those movie cameos, even my sister knew who Stan Lee was. She grew up with me endlessly reading and collecting comic books, of course. But when I pointed out the guy who co-created Spider-Man on the screen, she recognized him every time he popped up in the handful of Marvel movies we saw together. She’ll never be able to escape superheroes entirely.

(By the way, will Lee’s last live-action cameo have been in Venom?) Unless he’s in Avengers 4, his final on-screen appearance may well be in the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which hits theaters in mid-December.)

There will and have already been so many tributes, eulogies and obituaries dedicated to Stan Lee that I’m not sure I could possibly add anything. All I can contribute is what Lee and his many iconic creations mean to me to this day. So often when people write a tribute to someone, the piece ends up being about the writer more than the subject. As much as I’d like to avoid that, I don’t think it’s possible here.

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Amusement Park Podcast 013: The Curse of Heisenberg

/ Ian Casselberry / Leave a comment

heisenberg_right

Unlucky number 13! The latest episode of the Amusement Park Podcast looked dead, but we brought it back to life! This week, we discuss the Breaking Bad movie (and Ian still not watching the series — c’mon!), a potential three-hour Avengers 4, plummeting numbers for Marvel’s Netflix shows, and Chris’s dedication to Hallmark Christmas movies.

https://soundcloud.com/casselberry/the-curse-of-heisenberg

If you’re enjoying our podcast, please leave a review on iTunes and help our signal grow stronger. You can also leave feedback at amusementparkpod@gmail.com and on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @amuseparkpod. We’d love to hear from you. Thank you for listening!

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Fun and assured, Ant-Man and The Wasp is ideal follow-up to Infinity War

/ Ian Casselberry / 1 Comment

lilly_rudd

Every time a new Marvel movie comes out, there seems to be a compulsion to rank it among the previous superhero blockbusters. That sets an awfully high bar for Ant-Man and The Wasp, which doesn’t seem quite fair. Should it really be compared to a massive crossover epic like Avengers: Infinity War?

None of the Marvel movies are “small,” but the smaller scale here is an ideal follow-up to Infinity War‘s galaxy-spanning scope and grave stakes. Much of the speculation leading up to Ant-Man and The Wasp — from sites that needed content — focused on where the story fit in relation to the Avengers’ battle with Thanos. Does it take place before Thanos and his cronies attack Earth? Does it deal with what happened after Infinity War?

++ Avengers: Infinity War is an appetizer, but still a superhero epic with plenty of gut punches ++

While this is obviously a sequel to 2015’s Ant-Man and sort of a sequel to Captain America: Civil War — at least with the repercussions of Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) deciding to help Cap out in his philosophical conflict with Iron Man — it’s also a fairly standalone story that isn’t largely constructed as a setup for bigger films to come. Yes, it takes place before Infinity War, but those events are eventually addressed. (You know better than to leave before the credits are finished with a Marvel movie.)

The one big plotline left dangling from Ant-Man was the fate of the original Wasp, Janet Van Dyne (played in this sequel by Michelle Pfeiffer). During a mission with the OG Ant-Man, Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), Janet sacrificed herself — shrinking to sub-atomic size and getting lost in the Quantum Realm — in order to disable a nuclear missile. But Lang showed that it was possible to return from the Quantum Realm, inspiring Pym to find the wife whom he believed was forever lost.

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